The Ant and the Grasshopper: A true story.
A mother of a 9 year old boy, Mark, received
a phone call in the
middle of the afternoon. It was the teacher
from her son's school.
"Mrs. Smith, something unusual happened today
in your son's
third grade class. Your son did something
that surprised me so
much that I thought you should know about it immediately."
Mother seldom want to hear from their child's teacher
in the
middle of the day. The mother was uneasy and nervous
by such a
beginning to a phone call. "What now?" the mother
wondered.
The teacher continued, "I have been teaching
for many years and
nothing like this has happened until now. This morning
I was
teaching a lesson on creative writing. And as
I always do, I tell the story
of the ant and the grasshopper. The ant works
hard all
summer and stores up plenty of food. But the
grasshopper plays all
summer and does no work.
Then winter comes. The grasshopper begins to
starve because he
has no food. So he hops to the ants house and
begins to beg.
'Please Mr. Ant, you have much food please let me
eat, too.' Now
boys and girls your job is to write the ending to
the story.
Your son, Mark, raised his hand. "Teacher, may
I draw a picture?"
"Well, yes, Mark, if you like, you may draw
a picture. But first you
must write the ending to the story."
The papers came in. As in all the years past,
most of the students
said that the ant shared his food through the winter
and both the ant
and the grasshopper lived. As always,
a few children said, 'The ant said,
"No, Mr. Grasshopper. You should have worked
in the summer
and not played. Now, I have just enough food
for myself."
So the ant lived and the grasshopper died.
But your son ended the story in a way different
from any other child,
ever. He wrote, "So the ant gave all of his
food to the grasshopper;
the grasshopper lived through the winter. But
the ant died."
And the picture? At the bottom of the page,
Mark had drawn three
crosses. "He gave everything to us so that we
might live; but Jesus died."
Visitors since February 2000.